Recently it was demonstrated that pure spin
currents can be utilized to excite coherent
magnetization dynamics, which enables development of
novel magnetic nano-oscillators. Such oscillators do not
require electric current flow through the active
magnetic layer, which can help to reduce the Joule power
dissipation and electromigration. In addition, this
allows one to use insulating magnetic materials and
provides an unprecedented geometric flexibility. The
pure spin currents can be produced by using the
spin-Hall effect (SHE). However, SHE devices have a
number of shortcomings. In particular, efficient spin
Hall materials exhibit a high resistivity, resulting in
the shunting of the driving current through the active
magnetic layer and a significant Joule heating. These
shortcomings can be eliminated in devices that utilize
spin current generated by the nonlocal spin-injection
(NLSI) mechanism. Here we review our recent studies of
excitation of magnetization dynamics and propagating
spin waves by using NLSI. We show that NLSI devices
exhibit highly-coherent dynamics resulting in the
oscillation linewidth of a few MHz at room temperature.
Thanks to the geometrical flexibility of the NLSI
oscillators, one can utilize dipolar fields in magnetic
nano-patterns to convert current-induced localized
oscillations into propagating spin waves. The
demonstrated systems exhibit efficient and controllable
excitation and directional propagation of coherent spin
waves characterized by a large decay length. The
obtained results open new perspectives for the
future-generation electronics using electron spin degree
of freedom for transmission and processing of
information on the nanoscale.